And If You Think'
by thelandofthenutty
Summary: Donna and Josh oneshot with no Donna and Josh scenes. Donna speed dials Sam after Josh turns her down in 'The Ticket'Read and Review Please!


**A/N: Here is 'If you think…' otherwise known as 'The story that made me fail my history exam'. Grr. Stupid procrastinating. Set during 'The Ticket' at the beginning of the seventh season. Let me know what you think.**

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Donna walked swiftly from Josh's office, and down out of the building as quickly as she could. That was unexpected. She thought either he would say yes, or he would say no, and that would be it. She hadn't expected him to drop his guard. Josh hardly ever dropped his guard, and when he did, she was either left extremely elated or incredibly depressed. This was certainly the latter, and the thought bothered her- a Josh induced sulk was not a trait that she had harboured these past few months after her emancipation from the White House and the life of his assistant.

Donna got home, and shut the door, slumping down against it, and leaning her head back so that it was resting on the wooden frame. She was so stupid! Why had she gone and asked for a job? Why? Who in their right mind would have thought that that would have worked? After everything that she'd done, after she'd left him at the White House, and then battled him for a ruthless number of months in primaries, only to loose and come crawling back to him again? What was she thinking?

Donna took out her phone, and pressed speed dial two. She hadn't changed her speed dial in much too long. She was far too nostalgic to. One was Josh, and two called California. She'd placed Will in third, two months ago, and after that came her mother. She would have loved knowing she came after three men she worked with, Donna thought, bitterly. Fourth in line and she wasn't even getting any grandchildren out of it.

With her mind wandering like this, it startled Donna when Sam Seaborn actually answered his phone. He was a little hard to catch these days, and she had only spoken to him the previous night. But there he was, his voice greeting her familiarly down the line, causing her to flare up, only semi seriously.

"Sam I am never listening to your advice again." she told him, her voice full of fire and a little higher than usual. She could almost hear Sam cringe, states away.

"Turned you down huh?" he said, sympathetically.

"He read my own attack statements aloud! He kept ranting on about loyalty!"

"And he wasn't just being Josh? You know, ranting about loyalty in a 'you never bring me coffee' sort of way, or a 'yeah well you slept with a prostitute' sort of way? You sure he wasn't just ranting to hear the sound of his own voice before he hired you?" Sam asked, hoping to hear a gasp of realization from Donna's end of the phone so that he wouldn't feel so guilty for encouraging her to go for the job. Instead he heard her sigh.

"No, this was a real rant." she replied.

"That's weird. He said no? To you?" Sam was still astounded. He knew Josh had been angry, but he didn't think that he would care so much as to turn down having Donna around again. By the sound of her voice she didn't think so either.

"And did you use that face?"

"What face? Of course I used my face Sam, its attached to my head!"

"You get funnier every time we speak." Sam retorted, in a sarcastically monotonous tone. "No, that face that you get that looks like someone killed your pet puppies or something…"

"No, this time he used that face actually. It was a bit of a role reversal moment, it was kind of scary."

"I know, Josh isn't an animal person."

"Are you comparing me to a dog?"

"No, of course not, that would be mildly insulting."

"He seemed really mad…"Donna finished, sadly, exhaling in a long slow breath, and trying to keep her tears at bay. She'd held them back this many years one more phone call wasn't going to hurt her.

She couldn't get what he'd said out of her head. She couldn't shake his voice.

'_And if you think I don't miss you everyday…'_

It wasn't as though she didn't miss him too. She hadn't left the White House because she didn't want to spent every day with him. She had left the White House because the only reason she seemed to still be there was that she wanted to spend every day with him. And that wasn't a good enough reason to put her life on hold.

'_...If you think I don't miss you everyday…'_

CJ had planted the seed. He night of the lockdown, when she'd told her to do anything that didn't have to do with Josh Lyman, and have one night stands, and do non for profit work, and whatever else she had spilled out in her frustrated advice. Then she had tried. She had gone to Gaza, and had a fling with a photographer, and then she had been blown up, and everything went out the window when she woke up and found Josh there.

'_...If you think I don't miss you everyday…'_

She had been blown up in a car and yet her first thought, as she opened her eyes, had been that wherever she was hiding, no matter how far away, in whatever country it was she was in, Josh Lyman had found her, and she wasn't going to be able to get away from him as easily as she had thought she would.

'_...If you think I don't miss you everyday…'_

Then it had seemed like…well, like something was going to happen. He'd spent time with her in Germany- he'd sat for hours with her mother, and he'd outstayed 'Heathcliff'. But when she had gotten back to Washington it had returned to how it had always been- they would work together, and nothing more.

'_...If you think I don't miss you everyday…'_

That was when it had hit her. That was when she had understood. As long as they worked together, no matter what happened, they were always going to get back to this. And no matter what there was unspoken between them, as long as it was there she was never going to work anywhere else unless she quit now.

'_...If you think I don't miss you everyday…'_

So she had. Not because she wanted to never see Josh again, but because she had to before she exploded from it all.

'_...If you think I don't miss you ev-'_

"Donna?" Sam's voice was laced with guilt. He had always wanted the two of them together. But he was proud of Donna, and what she had become in such a short period of time. He wasn't as surprised as she thought he should be, but he was proud. And perhaps encouraging her to work with Josh again hadn't been a good idea at all, success rate be damned. They couldn't work together with whatever was between them unanswered.

Donna snapped back into the conversation.

"He told me he missed me." she told Sam, resigned.

Sam gave a small chuckle.

"Then the whole thing cant have gone nearly as bad as you're making it sound."

"No, he told me that while giving me the look."

"Right. Not so good then."

"No."

"You'll find something."

"It's not the prospective job that has me wanting to eat a whole tub of ice-cream right now…"

"I know."

Sam's cell phone rang in his pocket. The sound of it spiralled it's way back to Donna's ears.

"I'd better let you go."

"Yeah, ok, I'd better go listen to part two I suppose."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Talk soon?"

"Yeah, bye."

Donna hung up the phone, and then closed her eyes. She groaned at the fact that she'd fallen into this again. She wasn't that person anymore. She wasn't pining over Josh. She was her own person, and she was going to get on fine without him.

Sam hung up the phone, and then picked up his cell, rolling his eyes to himself, miles away, as he answered the flashing screen that read

'Josh Lyman'.

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**A/N: Reviews? You've read it now, it'll take another what? Thirty seconds? To make my day. Pretty fair trade off. I reply to them all too, I promise. **

**Hope you liked it, reviews or not. **

**Toodles, Jess x**


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